A LEAD suspect in the murder of a miner in Chief Ngabwe’s is battling for his life while chained to a hospital bed in Kabwe General Hospital, six months after being arrested.

Jim Mangaila has been in hospital in ward six after falling sick while in custody after he was nabbed in connection with the disappearance of Donald Muleba, a miner who went missing at the palace soon after the coronation of Ignitious Kashoka as chief Ngabwe in September last year.

Mr. Mangaila was arrested to help with the investigations, a move that led to the arrest of a few other individuals who have since been released in unexplained circumstances, a move that has raised questions from Mr. Muleba’s family who have accused the police of trying to hide the evidence.

Fan Muleba, wife to the man who disappeared mysteriously last year, told the Daily Nation that the family has been kept in the cold over the trail of the suspects, some of which have been released.

“We don’t know anything. We literally have to press police for updates which are not convincing. Last time we asked them, they told us that some people were taken to court but some people who were found with my husband’s clothes, a wrist watch, and gumboots have been released and we don’t know how they were released. Only one person is in custody,” Ms. Muleba said.

She accused the police of employing delaying tactics into the issue which was clear that her husband might have been murdered by the person he was last seen with.

And sources in Ngabwe have told the Daily Nation that the inertia by police to arrest and release people who were connected to the murder showed that money exchanged hands tin order to conceal the evidence.

The sources said after realising that Mangaila had started revealing sensitive information which affected a number of prominent people in the district, underhand methods were used to let the real culprits free.

“This is a big issue which should have been concluded by now if the police were serious with their job. The court have very little to do in an event that evidence is scanty. How do you explain a situation where some individuals are named by the lead suspect to have been behind the disappearance of a person yet they are let free? What more evidence are the police looking for other than the fact that his belongings were found with the same people they released?

“It is clear that Mangaila is being used as a sacrificial lamb while the goons who are the architects of the disappearance of Mr. Muleba are enjoying freedom. Mangaila will not survive because all they want is to conceal the evidence at all cost and this is making us live in fear in Ngabwe because none of us is safe,” said the sources.